A Lethal Cocktail
by Aisling-Siobhan
Summary: Frostiron Month 01: Loki had never had much in common with the Æsir. He'd never had anything in common with the mortals. But he had lost count of the traits he shared with Anthony Stark.


This is for the Frostiron Month Tumblr: Prompt 1.

July 01-03 Character Traits: _For a god and a mortal these two do share a lot of the same traits. Coincidence? Maybe, but when they're put together there sure are a lot of fireworks. And snark. Lots of snark._

"**A Lethal Cocktail**"

**Disclaimer: ** The Avengers, Tony, Loki, etc belong to Marvel, Stan Lee, et co. I make no money from this and own nothing, don't sue.

**Summary:** [Tony/Loki] Frostiron Month 01: Loki had never had much in common with the Æsir. He'd never had anything in common with the mortals. But he had lost count of the traits he shared with Anthony Stark.

**Warnings:** Slash. Loki/Tony. Post-Thor 2. Post-IM3. Post-Avengers. Tumblr prompt. Frostiron Month. Extremis Tony. Slightly dark!Tony?

**Rating:** PG15

**A/N**: The prompt was semi-met, and sort of not-met at the same time? Sorry?

**Title**: Taken from this quote: "_Arrogance, ignorance, and incompetence. Not a pretty cocktail of personality traits in the best of situations. No sirree. Not a pretty cocktail in an office-mate and not a pretty cocktail in a head of state. In fact, in a leader, it's a lethal cocktail_" by Graydon Carter.

_XXX_

**Words: ** 1,968

**Chapter 1**

There was something about the way he walked- swaggered, the way he swaggered, that reminded Loki of himself. Cocksure and smug, hiding his fear behind tricks and bravado. Loki didn't miss the bracelets that Stark snuck onto his wrists, half hidden behind the counter under the guise of pouring the God a drink; he said nothing, because it was amusing, and interesting, and familiar. He didn't realize at the time, how alike they were; he only knew there was something about this mortal, something _same_ about them and that was new.

Loki had never had much in common with the peoples of Asgard, rich or poor alike were different from him in ways that Loki had never really understood. He could have been a woman, perhaps, if not for the fact that he wasn't and they looked at him askance too when he tried to help them work or conjure. The warriors were not like him, nor his brother though Thor tried, and if Loki teased or joked or faked a smile, they only ever got angry. But here was Stark, making jokes about Loki's penis under-performing, grinning even as Loki threw him from a window, only to fly back up with a one-liner and a repulsor shot to the chest. Loki took it, Loki loved it, and he lay on the ground laughing long after Tony had flown off.

_XXX_

After going to the trouble of faking his own death, Loki hadn't been too keen on the idea of going back to Asgard. He had stayed for a while, just until the Allfather woke; long enough to be reminded of (despite how good he was at it) how much he hated politics. His Uncle would accept him into Vanaheimr, but too cowardly to admit that he was the reasons Frigga was dead, Loki did not chance it. He went to Midgard, first to Jane Foster, who was as boring as Loki had thought she'd be. Thor was there though, so Loki did not stay long. He went to New York after, but Stark was not there. Nor was he in Malibu (though his house was half in the sea despite the construction crew that tried their best to fix it).

When Loki found him, Stark was outnumbered five against one and he wasn't wearing the suit. He contemplated helping, but what had drawn Loki to him had been his strength and without it Loki didn't think he was worth saving. His back was turned already by the time the screaming started. Sand blew into his face and made Loki's eyes water, and the desert heat made him dizzy and thirsty but he wasn't faring as bad as he thought Tony should have been. The mortal was upright, arms in front of him with his fists curled, ready for a fight. Stark wasn't panting from the heat, nor sweaty, nor was he shaking sand out of his hair or brushing it off of his clothes like Loki kept doing. Instead, he was grinning, wide and feral (almost as if he was looking forward to death at the hands of the Ten Rings), and his fingers were glowing red from the inside.

Magic, Loki thought. Stark had mastered magic, like Loki had done.

But that wasn't it. This magic was red, an unusual colour in itself, and it could only conjure fire, sparks or streams of it, but nothing else. The five men put up a good fight, but Loki knew fire like he knew himself (he was fire; and chaos and destruction) and he knew that mortals had no hope against it. When they were burnt, stinking flesh stronger than the echoes of their screams, flesh peeling and clothes burning up enough to join the sand that swirled around their feet, Loki stepped out of the shadows.

Tony's eyes were black and red glowed beneath the skin of his cheeks and when he smiled Loki could see it seeping out around his teeth and dripping off of his tongue, dangerous as the words that followed. "You probably shouldn't have seen that. Suppose I'll have to do something about it then, huh?"

"And you shouldn't have seen me," Loki countered, his smile stretching his face until his eyes crinkled. "Should I likewise do something about it?"

Tony's head cocked to one side, considering in the way predators consider their prey before they pounce. He was dangerous, like Loki was, untamed yet tameable if someone knew how, knew not to suffocate completely. The longer the leash, the further their loyalty would stretch, the less they would hurt you once they broke free. This was familiar, too; this Tony was different to the last Loki had met, but they were the same as well (the characteristics he shared with Loki had not changed, though other parts of him must have).

"Let's call it a draw, Pollux Troy**1**," Tony said, offering him another of those cocky grins. "I have better things to do." He walked right passed the God, without flinching when their arms brushed, without fear that Loki might stop him. It was that fearlessness that stilled Loki's anger, that kept him more amused than offended by how easily he had been brushed off. Loki watched him go, eyes fixed on the back of Stark's head: or rather, just under it, where a strange little lump was visible just beneath his hair line.

_XXX_

They met again at a bar, a few weeks later, when Loki snuck up behind him and brushed his fingers lightly over the lump on the back of Stark's neck. "What's that?" He whispered, leaning over Tony's shoulder to feel him shudder.

"Wouldn't you like to know, Edmund Pevensie?**2**" Stark took a sip of his drink, before waving his hand at the bartender. A second glass was placed down beside the first a moment later, and Tony nudged it Loki's way. "Are you following me by the way? Gotta say, a little creepy, but also a little flattering."

Loki hadn't been following him at all, but as he opened his mouth to deny it he caught the twitch at the corner of Tony's mouth that meant he was amused and trying to hide it. Loki had a twitch like that, where his eyes narrowed a tiny bit and then got wider than they needed to be. Mostly when he was falsely proclaiming his innocence. He found himself smiling, pleased by the similarity: despite the difference between God and mortal, they had an awful lot in common, so maybe mortals weren't as pathetic as Loki had always insisted? Or more likely, Loki considered as the ice in Tony's glass melted the instant his fingers closed around it and stayed there, Tony wasn't mortal.

"Why do you not use my name?" Loki asked instead of answering, because that was also something they had in common.

"Yeah," Tony sighed, "I guess the jokes went right over your head, didn't they?"

Loki kept silent, staring at Tony's face with an unpleasant curl on his mouth. "Fine, fine," Tony said after a moment, uncomfortable with the silence that surrounded only them, unnoticed by the rest of the entirely too loud in comparison bar. "Would you prefer 'your most royal worshipness'? Or perhaps, 'the almighty pain in my ass'?"

There it was again, the bravado, the falseness; Loki grinned at it, revelling in its familiarity as much as in Tony's uncomfortableness. This silence was too much like truth, transparent and revealing. Tony didn't like the way the silence stripped his mask from him, how even in the darkness of the nightclub, surrounded by noise and bodies, he was so suddenly alone with Loki, who was still staring at him. Loki couldn't read his thoughts, but the longer the God stared, the more Tony feared he could: Loki knew this, because Loki had felt it. Trapped behind the glass of the cell, afraid of being left alone to rot forever, while the guards watched him, pacing like a caged bilgesnipe, and laughing at him. The longer they laughed, the more Loki had been convinced that they knew his fears, that he must have shouted them out in his sleep at one point and been overheard, and they only laughed and pointed and watched so that Loki would notice them, and then Loki would notice them leave. He'd be surrounded by bodies in cells, each screaming for mercy or hurling abuse at passing guards, but he would be alone, abandoned in his own cell, caged off from the rest of Asgard for not even his fellow prisoners wished to talk to the traitorous Prince.

Stark, for all of his fame and his wealth, was very much alone where it counted. Now, he had his new team mates, but even they had abandoned him when it counted, and he couldn't reconcile himself to the notion of _not_ being alone; he did not ask, and they did not offer. Much like Loki's life on Asgard, whenever Thor wasn't around to force his friends to accept Loki's company.

So very similar, and yet not, Loki thought. For while he had reacted in anger and tried to ruin worlds so that all could know his suffering, Tony saved people, helped people, even at his own expense. But he wasn't afraid to kill people in pursuit of his goals either (for Loki had watched him burn five men alive when he could easily have knocked them unconscious). Loki preferred to kill instead of incapacitate; less chance of someone looking for revenge that way. They seemed to have that in common too.  
**  
**_XXX_

Loki had eventually decided that Tony was never going to ask him; so Loki had just moved in without asking. He appeared one morning, with a satchel over one shoulder and a scowl on his face as the Avengers gathered for a group breakfast. He successfully managed to avoid Thor's exuberant attempts at hugging his miraculously alive brother, and ignored Clint's shout of rage-cum-terror; focusing his attention completely on Tony.

"Are you going to help me with my bags, Stark?"

"Sure, Mister World,"**3** Tony said with a grin, reaching out to tug the satchel away from Loki.

"I shall help you too, brother!" Thor roared, striding forward too, with one arm attempting to hug Loki again, and grab the bag from Tony with the other.

"Sure," Loki replied in a slow drawl, his wicked smirk already climbing up his cheeks centimetre by centimetre as Thor continued to grin at him in delight. "Here you go." He clicked his fingers, and in flash of green magic four huge suitcases appeared directly above Thor's head and fell on him one after the other. Thor caught the first, but the other three caught him off guard, and with a huff he finally fell to the ground as the fourth one knocked him on top of the head.

Most of the Avengers looked angry or worried, Bruce rushed over to check if Thor was hurt, and Steve was scowling, muttering under his breath about 'childishness' and 'rudeness'. Clint and Natasha had weapons in their hands the moment Loki attempted magic (well, actually, Clint had been armed since Loki arrived; knife in a white knuckled grip beneath the table). Tony, on the other hand, had his head thrown as he laughed. It was loud, and infectious, and Loki laughed along with him (and so did Thor, once he had shoved the suitcases aside and jumped to his feet again). Thor and Tony laughed because it _had_ been funny, and Loki laughed because Tony was laughing: because Tony was the first person in a very long time to genuinely laugh at one of Loki's pranks.

Mortal, God, or otherwise, Loki thought, whatever Anthony Stark was, Loki was glad they had so many traits in common. 

**The End**

**1** - Face/Off (1997), weird younger brother.

**2**- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) a younger brother that sold out his siblings (and a world) for chocolate.

**3** - From Neil Gaiman's "American Gods". I want to quote so many parts of the book, but I'll just say this: "'Power,' said Mr. World. 'What matters is the chaos, and the slaughter.'" Also, they sewed his lips shut too.


End file.
